An Inconvenient Truth
by Hypothetical Whores
Summary: What if Crux picked a less convenient time to attack in Dark Days? Say when Valkyrie's parents were in the room? Warning: involves getting kicked in the nads. Eventual Valduggery. Rated T for language.
1. Broken Crockery

PLOT (maybe)

Valkyrie Cain sat eating dinner with her beloved parents. It was the first time she had done so in a considerable amont of time. Not that her parents knew that, thank fuck. Anyway, dinner was nice, some pasta confection of her dad's. Valkyrie often missed 'real food', not that living on take-out pizza was a bad thing.

The fork was halfway to her awaiting mouth, the tomato sauce glistening in the early afternoon sunlight, when the kitchen window exploded inwards, showering the shocked family with shards of glass. Valkyrie's mam started screaming and her dad cursed loudly.

Without missing a beat, Valkyrie jumped up from her pasta to see a familiar figure crouched on the floor on the remains of their kitchen window. For a moment she didn't recognize him, the clothes were all wrong - layers of torn and filthy garments, mud-caked boots and fingerless gloves. The hair was longer, untamed, and the face was dirty. It was the beard that gave him away though, the pointy little beard that Remus Crux always wore to hide his weak chin.

While her parents screamed at her to get away, she jumped onto the table, and without losing momentum used the table as a sprinboard, landing on the man's dishevelled haed. She wanted to take him down as quickly as possibly, without using her powers in front of her parents. Brute force she could explain away, displaced air on the other hand... not so much.

However, just before she managed to land on top of him, he shot a blast of air at her, knocking her over mid-leap. She rolled out of her fall and came up, creating a fireball iwith a snap of her fingers. Ignoring the screams and shouts of her parents, she threw the fireball at Crux, but he dodged out of the way.

"I'm going to dance on your corpse, Cain!" he shrieked furiously, sending another blast of air towards her. Clicking the fingers of one hand to create another fireball, she reached into her pocket with the other and slipped on her Necromancer's ring. With a yell, she send a fiery blast of black magic towards the deranged former-detective. He was knocked off his feet and crashed into a kitchen cabinet, causing it to fall and china to fly everywhere.

Cursing her, he staggered to his feet, but Valkyrie was there before he could register it and she kicked him furiously in the groin. He bent over double, retching, and she grabbed one of his arms, holding him in an armlock.

"Who sent you, Crux?" she snarled. He didn't reply, and she knee-ed him in the stomach. "Why are you here?" she demanded menacingly.

"Stephanie!" her dad yelled, distracting her. She glanced over at her parents who were staring at her, shell-shocked. Her momentary lapse in concentration gave Crux the window he needed to knock her backwards, off her feet onto the broken glass and china that littered the floor. With one last snarl in her direction, he lept out of the broken window and scampered off.

Valkyrie climbed gingerly to her feet and swore loudly. Brushing broken crockery off her jeans she winced at the sure to be many bruises and cuts she had attained. She then turned reluctantly to face her parents.

She decided to try Gordon's approach.

"Um.. this is all a dream?" she attempted half-heartedly. There was a moment's silence as her parents continued to stare dumbfoundedly at her.

"What... who... why...?" her father eventually spluttered. He seemed to collect himself for a moment before asking rather weakly, "Are you hurt?"

Valkyrie shrugged, and winced. "Nothing too serious." Her mother seemed about to faint, so Valkyrie pulled out a chair, sweeping the broken glass from it, and guided the shaken woman to it.

"So, um, how much did you get from, uh, that?" she queried.

"Quite a bit," her father replied, leaning heavily against the table.

"I think you have some explaining to do, young lady."

Valkyrie stared at them for a while, deciding.

"Ehm... well, d'you remember a man called Skulduggery Pleasant?"

Her father groaned.

"Steph, you said you had nothing to do with those.. people."

"Yeah, well, I lied. But I _can _safely say that I'm not insane, if that helps."

Finally, her mother spoke.

"Stephanie... what just happened?"

"Um... there was a bit of a kerfuffle. Don't worry, I won."

"Who was that man?"

"Remux Crux. Now he _is_ insane."

"Stephanie Edgely," her father began threateningly. "I think you should tell us what's going on _right now_."

"Given recent evidence, yes... I probably should. Y'see the thing is... um, the thing... what it is, is..." She floundered, looking for a way to explain fireballs, shadows, talking skeletons and broken crockery.

"Magic" she said simply.

A/N So yeah. Thought that would be fun to write. Fight scenes are TOTALLY AWESOME!

Just a random thought that Igneous Pride had. Hope you enjoyed.

To be continued...


	2. Not quite insaneyet

Plot!

"Magic?" her father asked disbelievingly.

She rolled her eyes and clicked her fingers, creating a spark.

"Magic." she replied evenly.

Her parents stared at the leaping flame that was doing no harm to her hand.

"I think I need to sit down," her mother said weakly.

"Mum, you are sitting down" Valkyrie informed her gently.

"Oh, so I am," she agreed faintly.

"What did he call you? You know? When he threatened to dance on your corpse." her father asked, who seemed to be on the verge of a meltdown

"Cain." she said. "Its what I go by these days. Valkyrie Cain, but my friends call me Val." she said, in a desperate attempt to diffuse the tension.

"Not like Stephanie anymore, then?" her mother questioned.

She shrugged. "Its not a matter of taste. My given name can and has been used against me"

"So what does this Skulduggery fellow have to do with any of this?" her dad asked.

The mention of Skulduggery suddenly reminded her that she should probably call someone about the deranged zealot roaming the streets of Haggard. However, this was proven unnecessary, as Solomon Wreath strolled casually into the kitchen

"You're not dead" he pointed out brilliantly, as Valkyrie's dad leapt up.

"Who are you and how did you get in this house?" he thundered.

"There is a rather large hole where your window used to be. Also the front door was unlocked." Wreath stated pleasantly.

"Doors are for people with no imagination" Valkyrie said before she could stop herself.

Solomon smirked.

"What are you doing here, Solomon?" Valkyrie asked.

"Yeah!" her dad injected angrily, "Possession is nine tenths of the law!"

Solomon ignored the irate mortal. "I heard Remus Crux had been sighted in this area. Naturally I assumed he was coming after you. It seems I was right, although I did not believe he would attack in daylight.

"And why didn't you tell me this?" Valkyrie asked furiously.

"Bait doesn't need to know it's bait."

"Who do you think you are, calling my daughter 'bait'?" her dad demanded.

Solomon looked at her father, his smirk growing more pronounced. "Well, as it seems you are in no imminent danger, I will take my leave. I got what I came for. We don't know why he's after you, but at least now we know that he is."

"Who's we?" her dad asked, growing more annoyed that his questions were not being answered.

Solomon once again ignored him, and with a nod to Valkyrie, tapped his cane against the ground, and was swallowed by shadows, once again taking first place for dramatic exits.

Another awkward moments silence

"How do you know all these people?" her mother burst.

"I get around" Valkyrie said airily.

"Who was he?" her father thundered.

"A...friend of mine." she evaded.

"You're friends with grown men?" her mother asked, looking a little bit scandalized.

"And women." she said defensively.

She decided to to just go for it

"Okay, the real thing is that Skulduggery Pleasant is a detective, and for the last three years, I've been his partner and student. We've made quite a few enemies, as you can imagine" she said gesturing to the gaping hole in their kitchen wall. "And he's in a bit of trouble at the moment. And in order to get him out of it, I've been learning...other types of magic from Solomon."

"Oh Steph...are you sure you're not just insane" her mother asked pleadingly, really grasping at the least straw.

"Sorry, 'fraid not"

A\N Sorry about the long wait


End file.
